Mumbling for Israel Why American Jews find it harder then ever

to speak up for the Jewish State.

www.tikkunolamisrael.org

Speak Up for Israel Campaign

Do we speak the same language when we speak of:

Morals and valuesPoliticsReligious pluralism How we view assimilationHow we define “being Jewish”

How we define “being Jewish”Voluntary Judaism: Are you Jewish?

vs.

Established Judaism: You are Jewish!

Law of Return: For the purposes of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion." 

Reform Movement: a person with one Jewish parent can be considered to be a Jew if he or she is raised with "appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people"

How we define “being Jewish”In America = Voluntary Judaism

the Tribe.

(9:06)

Today’s young Jews have multiple identities shaped by many factors, including intermarriage in their families, diverse social networks, and dynamic boundaries around geography and other identity characteristics such as gender and sexual orientation. Being Jewish is part of a larger identity mosaic for today’s Jews.

If in 100 years Israel will exist and I will come to the Diaspora [and] there will not be [any] Jews I will not cry. I don’t say I want it.... But if Israel will disintegrate, for me personally … there is no alternative to be a post-Zionist Jew. You change your identity like somene who changes in and out of a Jacket. [Being] Israeli is my skin; it’s not my jacket.

He went further, accusing Diaspora Jews of “playing with Jewishness” because their decisions as Jews were made in American terms. He characterized this phenomenon as “plug and play” Judaism. AJC convention, May 2006

"They are partial Jews while I am a complete Jew," Yehoshua said, referring to American Jewry. "In no way are we the same thing - we are total and they are partial; we are Israeli and also Jewish. In recent years, my friends and I have needed to defend Israel against the matter of the state, as if it is merely an issue of citizenship, while Israel is the authentic, deep concept of the Jewish people ... (Jerusalem, 2008)

How do Israeli’s relate to voluntary Judaism?

How we view intermarriageAccording to the National Jewish Population Study of

2000-01, the intermarriage rate for Jews who married:

• before 1970 was 13% • between 1970-1979 was 28%• between 1980-1984 was 38%• between 1985-90 was 43%• between 1991-95 was 43%• between 1996-2001 was 47%

Intermarriage = reality we embrace, it does NOT necessarily mean assimilation

In Israel: Intermarriage = Assimilation, a threat to Jewish continuity.

Masa Lost Commercial

Ministry of Absorption campaign- Hanukah commercial

Ministry of Absorption campaign- Mamorial Day commercial

Netanyahu Government Suggests Israelis Avoid Marrying American Jews By Jeffrey Goldberg , Nov 30 2011 The Netanyahu government's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is sponsoring advertisements in

at least five American communities that warn Israeli expatriates that they will lose their identities if they don't return home.The Ministry is also featuring on its website a series of short videos that, in an almost comically heavy-handed way, caution Israelis against raising their children in America… the Ministry does not differentiate between the "dangers" of marrying American Jews, and American non-Jews...

I don't think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads… These government-sponsored ads suggest that it is impossible for Jews to remain Jewish in America. How else are we supposed to understand the "Christmas" ad? Obviously, assimilation and intermarriage are issues in America in ways they aren't in Israel. Israel has other problems of course, such as the fact that many of its rabbis act like Iranian mullahs. (I'm not even going to try to unpack my complicated beliefs about intermarriage and assimilation and life in the Diaspora here; that's for a book. But let me just say that intermarriage can also be understood as an opportunity.)

The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik (if you don't mind me resorting to the vernacular). The message is: Dear American Jews, thank you for lobbying for American defense aid (and what a great show you put on at the AIPAC convention every year!) but, please, stay away from our sons and daughters.

Secular Traditional Religious

44 39 17% ס" למ

Just Jewish Reform Conservative Orthodox

26 35 27 10% NJPS

Religious pluralism

Religious Pluralism in Israel - Case study: Women of the wall

Anat Gets Arrested

Conservative female rabbi slams 'religious coercion' Julie Schonfeld, first woman elected to senior executive position in major Jewish religious organization, says while Jewish

people were victims of 'religious harassment' in past, this is exactly what is happening in Israel today

Tzofia Hirshfeld

"I'm very worried about the haredization of Israel's Chief Rabbinate and the way in which it is becoming the sole determining authority in religious affairs in the country. This reality is of course very bad for the non-Orthodox streams in Israel but also bad for Israel in general... The separation between religion and politics in Israel is vital – it has become an existential issue. It cannot be allowed to disappear from the public agenda.

But you don't live in Israel. How come the religious situation here upsets you so much?"In my view, the unity of the Jewish people necessitates an inexorable connection between Diaspora Jews and the state

of Israel. It is an unconditional obligation, that is not dependent on anything. We want a safe and secure Israel. And yet we struggle with the same love for Israel to ensure that Israel, the Jewish state, respects all Jews. All the streams and movements make our nation what it is. There is no separation between us, between those who live in the Diaspora and those who live in Israel. We are one nation – and that is our strength. I live in the United States where freedom of religion is anchored in the American Constitution. In Israel, unfortunately, the situation is different. Here members of my movement, and mainly female members, have experienced, and continue to experience religious coercion. And when a Jew experiences religious coercion, anywhere it is every Jew's problem. We are each other's guarantors."

What is religious coercion?"Religious coercion occurs when spiritual activity, worshipping God, becomes a criminal act, as happened when one of

the female members of our movement was arrested at the Western Wall because she was wearing a tallit. 'Religious coercion' is when people who want to pray are forced to contend with hatred or even violence. 'Religious coercion' is when someone tries to repress the legitimate spiritual expression of one whose personal approach is different than that which is generally accepted. 'Religious coercion' has been a fact of life throughout our history; and we are subjected to it by the powers that be, governments and kingdoms, which were hostile to us, but there is no place for religious coercion in the state of Israel.

Dare I Daven at the Kotel?Dave Belden on February 15th, 2010

“What will happen when my sons are old enough to accompany me to Israel? A highlight of every trip to Israel is a visit to the Kotel, the symbolic site of Jewish yearning for centuries. My boys are young enough to stand with me in the women’s section, where they would expect me to don the tallis and tefillin they are accustomed to seeing on their mom. How long until the heckling and threats of the ultra orthodox begin? How long until the police come to intervene and in front of the horrified gaze of my children do what is only done with “bad guys,” — to arrest me. This is what we tragically coined, hatradah datit — religious harassment… It is practically inconceivable to me that six short decades after the founding of the State of Israel, we have to fight for religious freedom and equality in the Jewish homeland.

No religious leader will turn my sons’ religious images of inspiration, connection and love to images of terror, oppression and degradation. You will not alienate my sons from our Jewish homeland. You will not, in the gaze of my young boys, remove their mother’s prayers from their Kotel.”

'State must recognize non-Orthodox denominations'By JEREMY SHARON12/11/2012

Leading national-religious Rabbi Yuval Cherlow says state should give political recognition to all Jews to strengthen Jewish identity.

Leading national-religious personality Rabbi Yuval Cherlow has called for state recognition of non-Orthodox Jewish denominations as a means of preventing their alienation from the Jewish state. Cherlow added, however, that this recognition should be political in nature and not on the basis of Jewish law.

“World Jewry, principally in the US, continues to assimilate and is disappearing from the Jewish people,” wrote Cherlow. According to the rabbi, one reason for growing alienation of world Jewry from Israel is that the state does not recognize non-Orthodox streams “and the fact that they are not wanted here... and they don’t want to identify with a state that has a religious monopoly.”

Cherlow added that the perception of the Chief Rabbinate “adds fuel to the fire,” in this regard… The Chief Rabbinate, and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in particular, bitterly denounced the decision as threatening the future of the Jewish people, with Amar accusing non-Orthodox rabbis of “poisoning the well of holiness and taking people to the nethermost pit.”

Cherlow wrote in his letter that one possible method to prevent Diaspora communities’ loss of Jewish identity and identification with Israel would be for the state to recognize the different non-Orthodox denominations through “a differentiation between the position of Jewish law and the policies of the State of Israel.

Here is another example of how church and state are intertwined in

Israel, form the past electionsShas commercial: star approval

War was not a

mistake

War in Iraq is a mistake

Religious group

46 52% All Americans

49 48 Protestants

46 53 Catholic

21 77 Jews

72 27 Mormons

Politics

Jews make up 2% of the US population. In 2008 - 90% of the Jewish community eligible to vote- were registered and 96% of that group actually voted.

It is thought that 68% of Jews voted "Jewish" which means that they voted on values that are considered Jewish and this was determined by how they themselves identify as Jews.

Jews no longer vote as a one issue community - such as Israel. There are a broad range of issues Jews are concerned about.

Barack Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote, which is about 25 percent greater than Obama’s percentage of total support nationally. Obama’s 78 percent of the Jewish vote comes surprisingly close to Al Gore’s 79 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, when Gore ran with a Jewish vice presidential nominee. (NJPS)

Sarah Silverman and The Great Schlep

Politics

No opinion

Neutral Pro Palestinian

Pro Israel

8% 36% 50% 6% Is Obama

In U.S. vote, Israeli Americans are from Mars, Jewish Americans are from VenusBy Chemi Shalev | Nov.05, 2012

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that 85 percent of Americans living in Israel did indeed vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and only 15 percent for Barack Obama. Even if that figure, derived from a disputed exit poll, is somewhat inflated, it can’t be far off the mark. It stands to reason that Americans living in Israel would prefer Romney over Obama, just like most Israelis would. They are, after all, one-issue voters. Having made the laudable decision to come to Israel, they are no longer concerned with internal American issues. Their only focus is on their government’s problematic relations with, and antagonistic posture towards, the current president of the United States. And whatever one thinks of Obama’s policies toward Israel, there is no doubt that he has a PR problem with Israelis, at the very least…

But Americans living in Israel are, by their very definition, a breed apart… They are the ones who decided to leave America behind and to make Israel their home, for which they should be commended. But having done so, they have fundamentally detached themselves from the reality of the community they left behind. They no longer have a clue what preoccupies American Jews, and why. Many of them have lived in Israel for so long, they have probably forgotten what it is that makes American Jews vote for Democrats in the first place.

They are now a part of the majority in Israel, not of the minority in America, and thus oceans apart, not only geographically but psychologically as well. The Jewish majority in Israel is ambivalent, at best, about the demands of its main minority, Israeli Arabs, for absolute civil equality. American Jews, on the other hand, have always been attuned to the rights of minorities - as a matter of belief, of history, of justice and of self-preservation as well. They may not be as close to African Americans as they used to be, but many Jews are still more sympathetic to their plight than most other Americans, and when African Americans line up 95%-5% against a Republican candidate, American Jews hear their message, loud and clear.

MLK + Rabbi A.J. Heschel, Selma, 1965

Morals and values

Incitement Against Refugees leads to Racist Attacks in Israel

"The infiltrators issue has become a strategic threat to Israeli society, and is making the lives of many of Israel's citizens unbearable. The new law will put a stop to the infiltrators' main incentive – to come to Israel to find work."

MK Ofir Akunis (Likud), on "Infiltrators Law" amendment that levies imprisonment of up to 5 years and fines of 500,000 NIS for Israelis found illegally employing asylum seekers. Haaretz, July 25, 2012.

"We are not talking about an operation against infiltrators, but rather an operation to preserve the Jewish-Zionist identity of the state."

Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai (Shas), on operation to deport illegal immigrants of South Sudanese origin, Yediot Aharonot, June 11, 2012

"The Sudanese are a cancer in our body. We will not allow people to come here to look for work in the land of Israel. First we will take care of the poor in our cities. We need to deport them and it's not shameful to say it. I say to all the left-wingers who appealed to the Supreme Court against the deportation – that is shameful . . . we cannot let anarchists and left-wingers do that anymore."

MK Miri Regev (Likud) speaking before the Knesset. Maariv, May 25, 2012

Morals and values- Case study – African Asylum Seekers

With all that we’ve seen here today- How can Jewish Students still be

expected to speak up for Israel???

want to learn more? Join us at

Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv – Jaffa

www.tikkunolamisrael.org